Cover Song

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Have you ever heard a song, learned it, sang it for years, then found out that you were singing it wrong?

Isn't that the worst?

That happened to me a lot as a child, I think because children have a small vocabulary and are not used to the grammatical rules, so they just insert words that they recognize for the sounds they don't. e.g. "I've got the peace that passeth understanding down in my heart" translates to "I've got a piece of pasta under sanding down in my heart." Who out there knows what I'm talking about?

Sometimes, when my own kids make these mistakes, I don't want to correct them right away, because it is so cute and fun. Jabin in particular, who has been singing from such a young age, has made many of these fun substitutions. However, most of them have faded from use as he learns the real words.

There are a few phrases that he has clung to, however, despite being told the correct ones. Here are the classic "sounds-alike" lines from Jabin's versions of some old childhood hits:

"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star""... how I wonder what you are? Up a up a world so high,..."

"Jesus Loves Me""... Yes, Jesus loves me, before the Bible tells me so." (Doesn't make for good rhythm, but it's still true!)

He has also begun composing his own songs. This morning, on the way into town, he ran through his round of traditional favourites (all of the above, plus "Johnny Appleseed"), then started improvising. It went something like this:

(with a lilting tune)

Jabin's SongI love everyone in the whole worldAll the mans and all the momsAnd Jude and Noah and EmilyAnd I love everyone.

At that point, he got distracted by Noah, who was still singing Johnny Appleseed quietly to himself in the backseat.

We were listening to Bible verse songs in the van the other day and the line goes, "This is from Psalm 89/it's verse eight and it is fine." Yeah. Samantha (age 5) heard "it's from Satan, it is fine." We had to have a little explanation on THAT one!

Hi Talena, love your postings! Your boys mixed-up words reminded me of Great Aunt Helen's childhood reciting The Lord's Prayer...our Father, with Art in Heaven....and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Emil !

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